For more SwimNews coverage of this special event, click here: Dubai 2010

Where Dubai 2010 Beat The S/C Clock

Dec 20, 2010
- Craig Lord

The world titles in Dubai are done and standards have been rewritten. For the first time in swimming history no world records fell in the premier pool, these days 50m long-course, in a single calendar year in 2010. The use of non-textile suits in 2008 and 2009 made an impact on short-course swimming but the last time the world gathered for genuine global battle was Manchester 2008, when the Speedo LZR Racer had just been born and long before the full 100% suits reared their heads. All such suits were banned on January 1, 2010. While efforts in Dubai flooded the all-time rankings for times clocked by swimmers in textile suits, showing genuine progress in the sport and in short-course swimming, the all-time rankings noted below for all medal winners in Dubai show just how significant the impact of suits now banned was and just how appropriate it was to confine such apparel to the mistakes of history.

In Dubai at the world short-course championships on December 15-19, four world records fell and the all-time textile-suit ranks were put to the test. Here's how five days of fast racing impacted the all-time top 5:

All-time textile rankings top 5 - (in brackets, the world record, any suit, and the all-time performances rankings, any suit, of the winning time and efforts that took silver and bronze in Dubai)